Harper's Round Table, October 29, 1895 Part 8

But the foe has stopped too long! The mortar battery on Lobos has gotten his range. Suddenly with a whir a column of smoke rises in the air just over the bay, and a bunch of 16-inch mortar sh.e.l.ls falls upon the battle-s.h.i.+ps' unprotected decks. One sh.e.l.l strikes over the boilers of one of the s.h.i.+ps, penetrating them a second later, the explosion of which rends her asunder; and where this powerful steel-clad had been but a moment before is but the hissing foam of troubled waters.

The General sees the fight has now reached the critical point; the cruisers have dashed ahead and will soon be within the harbor. Many of the batteries have been put out of action by the well-aimed shots of the enemy. The navy is needed, but the telephone connection with the station has been severed; the signal has not been made. Time is precious. A few minutes more, and the whole fleet will be within the bay of San Francisco, and, without the batteries, will be more than a match for the few United States s.h.i.+ps.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HE SEES THE FAMOUS "OREGON" COME RUs.h.i.+NG DOWN TO THE FIGHT.]

An exclamation involuntarily escapes from the General's lips as he sees the famous _Oregon_ emerge from behind Alcatraz Island, and come rus.h.i.+ng down to the fight.

The small fleet was thought too valuable to hazard against such as the enemy brought. The plan was not to expose it till the signal was made.

But the Admiral, behind Alcatraz Island, has been pacing up and down the deck of his battle-s.h.i.+p, tugging at the restraining bonds, growing more and more impatient as the cannonading has become more furious. The crews of the s.h.i.+ps feel the inactivity keenly; anything is better than this suspense. Why does not the signal come? The Admiral will wait no longer, but slips his moorings, regardless of consequences, and appears in the nick of time with his fleet to bar the entrance to the bay.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "PREPARE TO RAM."]

The _Oregon_, _Monterey_, and _Monadnock_ engage the two remaining battle-s.h.i.+ps. There is no sea-room for manoeuvring, and the rapid way in which the Yankee guns are served shows that they are more than a match for their huge enemies. The cruisers have closed in for the death-struggle; every weapon of modern warfare is being employed; two s.h.i.+ps of the foe and one of his opponent's have been torpedoed, and in another moment one of ours rams their biggest battle-s.h.i.+p. The General on sh.o.r.e can almost hear the command, "Prepare to ram." It is so quickly and skilfully executed. The forts have now become inactive, fearing to fire lest by chance one of their own s.h.i.+ps might be struck.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ANOTHER IS FORCED TO STRIKE THE WHITE FLAG.]

The enemy suddenly begins to retreat, leaving two of his s.h.i.+ps on the rocks, while another is forced to strike the white flag.

Night has come on. The sun has an hour ago gone below the western horizon. The evening fog-bank comes in and mingles with the battle smoke about the silent batteries, which only a short time before were the scene of bloodshed and war. The brave defenders may sleep in peace in their blankets and hammocks. The pride of the enemy has been humbled, and the beautiful city of San Francisco is safe from torch and sh.e.l.l.

SHARK-CATCHING IN MID-OCEAN.

BY A. J. KENEALY.

The _Rajah_ made good progress south, the northeast trades blowing her thither swiftly. We were fast approaching the belt of calms, squalls, rain, and variable winds known to sailors as the "doldrums."

The skipper had four coops of fat ducks which he tended with loving care. He just doted on them stuffed with sage and onions, and while they were being roasted he used to hang about the galley enjoying the savory odors that escaped from the oven. One morning while it was raining as though the gates of heaven had been opened wide the Captain thought he would give his pets a treat. The s.h.i.+p was heeling over considerably, being close-hauled on the starboard tack, with all her flying kites dowsed to the puffy breeze. He ordered the lee scuppers to be plugged up, and as soon as a sufficiently large pool had collected on deck, he liberated the ducks so that they might enjoy the luxury of a fresh-water bath. The ducks were delighted, and demonstrated their joy by noisy quacks. The pigs in the pens forward responded with joyous squeaks. The c.o.c.ks and hens in the long-boat joined in with a merry chorus of crows and cackles. The combined music was that of a barn-yard.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AWAY WENT A DOZEN OF THE DUCKS INTO THE SEA.]

The s.h.i.+p heeled over until the scuppers were awash. The weight of all the fresh water on deck as the s.h.i.+p inclined to the squall and rose on the next wave was thrown against a lee port aft near which the ducks were disporting themselves. Now it happened that the las.h.i.+ng of this port was only of spun-yarn, rotten at that. The wash of the water against the port parted the las.h.i.+ng, swung the port wide open, and away went a dozen of the ducks into the sea with a great whir of wings and clamorous cackling.

One of the sailors closed and secured the port before any more of the birds escaped. Then the rest of the watch came aft, running helter-skelter at the hurried hail of the mate, and drove the rest of the flock into their pen. Had there been the slightest chance of capturing the runaways the Captain would have backed the main-topsail, hove the s.h.i.+p to, and lowered the quarter-boat.

Meanwhile the wind had died out. The sails flapped lazily against the mast, and the s.h.i.+p rolled sluggishly on the heaving bosom of old ocean.

The clouds rolled away, and the pitiless burning sun shone down on the deck and dried up all the moisture on wood and rope in a few minutes. It was one of those sudden meteorological changes so common in equatorial lat.i.tudes. An awning was rigged up over the man at the wheel. The skipper put on a huge _topee_, or Indian pith helmet, to shelter his head from the sweltering rays which made the pitch boil and bubble up in the seams of the main-deck, and promised plenty of work for the carpenter's calking-irons.

The ducks, obeying a sort of homing instinct, I suppose, swam up to the now almost motionless s.h.i.+p, and continued their sport nearly within a stone's throw. Suddenly a bright idea struck the skipper.

"See the lee quarter-boat clear for lowering!" he shouted to the second mate. Then he put his head down the cabin skylight and ordered the steward to bring up his breech-loader and a lot of cartridges. The boat was lowered and manned. A side ladder was rigged; the Captain with his gun descended and took up a position in the bow, from which he directed operations. The c.o.c.kswain seized the tiller-ropes. "Shove off let fall give way!" he cried, all in one breath, without any regard to punctuation, so excited was he, and in such a hurry to get within gunshot of the ducks. If he could not catch them alive, he meant to have them dead.

The boat was headed for the flock. When within easy range the skipper let them have it right and left. His aim was so good that he brought down three. It took some time to pick them up, which gave the scared flock an opportunity to get out of gunshot. None others, as it happened, were fated to fall victims to the deadly breech-loader of our sportsman-skipper. The dorsal fins of six sharks were observed sticking up above the surface of the water, and converging from different directions on the doomed ducks. Sharks are abundant in equatorial waters, and they follow s.h.i.+ps for miles. Some of them are very large.

All are voracious and ugly customers to tackle.

The way those sharks gobbled up those ducks was a sight to behold. They were disposed of in three minutes. The Captain was terribly angry. He tried to revenge himself by peppering the sharks with shot, but it is doubtful if the leaden pellets made the slightest impression on their tough hides, even if he succeeded in hitting them.

The boat pulled back to the s.h.i.+p, and was hoisted to the davits. The calm continued. Four of the sharks came up alongside, eager for more ducks. Such appetizing fare was seldom theirs. Stray garbage from pa.s.sing s.h.i.+ps, flotsam from the forecastle, composed the diet upon which they usually depended in addition to their steady prey of fish. The Captain brooded over the loss of his ducks for some time. Then he made up his mind to have a little shark-fis.h.i.+ng, and thus combine revenge and recreation.

He sent below for a brand-new shark-hook with a sharp and cruel barb. To the ring of the hook was attached a stout chain a fathom long. A shark's teeth are so sharp and strong that they can bite through the stoutest rope with singular ease. To the end of the chain the skipper bent on a two-and-a-half-inch manilla line, and having impaled a four-pound piece of pork on the hook, hove it overboard, with the remark that he intended to have a slice of fresh shark for supper.

The sharks were playing about the rudder on the lookout for any stray trifles that might come along their way from a sailor down to a beef bone. They are not at all fastidious or dainty. It was my first experience of shark-fis.h.i.+ng, and I was a keen and interested observer.

The water was so clear that I could watch every motion of the four monsters as they swam slowly about, each one attended by his own particular body-guard of pilot-fish--pretty little creatures shaped something like perch, with blue vertical stripes. Ichthyologists declare that these fish attend the shark for the purpose of preying upon the parasites that infest him. This may be a true explanation, but I cannot understand how it is that a hungry deep-sea shark, that will snap up anything living or dead, permits these plump little fish to play unscathed about his enormous jaws. There are other curious things about these pilot-fish that naturalists cannot explain. They only attach themselves to the pelagic species found in deep water; there are always five or seven of them to each shark, never an even number; they stick to the shark while he is floundering about in the water with a hook through his jaws, but as soon as he is hoisted above the surface of the sea they immediately disappear. n.o.body knows what becomes of them.

I have had several good opportunities of studying the habits of sharks, and have always been curious about them. As a matter of fact, very little is known concerning the ocean variety, which is quite distinct from that of the sh.o.r.e.

No sooner had the pork plashed into the sea than one of the rapacious monsters made a rush for it. The remarkable velocity of this fish was surprising to me, who had never before seen a deep-sea shark in his native element. The water was so beautifully limpid that his every action could be accurately observed. I thought he would gorge the bait immediately, but he did not. When he came up with it, he made a sudden stop. Then he sniffed at it with an air of expectant and suspicious curiosity. The next thing he did was to turn his tail to it contemptuously, and swim away a considerable distance.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "WATCH HIM MAKE A DART FOR IT NOW," SAID THE SKIPPER.]

"Watch him make a dart for it now," said the skipper, who was an old hand at shark-catching.

Like a flash the hungry fish went for the tempting bait, turning over so that he might grasp it more conveniently with his wide and cruel jaws.

In an instant it was engulfed in his maw. And then there was such a floundering and thres.h.i.+ng in the water as I had never before seen. The fierce shark, maddened with the pain of the sharp hook, made frantic but fruitless efforts to escape. He snapped savagely at the strong chain attached to the hook, with the sole result of damaging his own cruel-looking teeth. Meanwhile the fish had been dragged forward to the starboard gangway in spite of his wild struggles. A running bowline was sent down the line that held him, and as the shark was hoisted over the side it was pa.s.sed over his body and hauled taut round his tail, in order to control the movements of this his most formidable weapon.

Instances have been known of a blow from a shark's tail breaking a man's leg on the deck of a vessel immediately after being hauled in over the side.

This fish in question was gigantic. It took eight men to hoist him in-board. "Chips," the carpenter, stood by with a keen axe, and as soon as Mr. Shark's struggling carca.s.s was landed on the deck, with one powerful blow he severed his tail from his body, and thus incapacitated him from mischief. From time immemorial it has been the s.h.i.+p carpenter's privilege and duty to out off the tails of all sharks captured during a deep-sea voyage, and the cook generally despatches him much after the fas.h.i.+on of a j.a.panese when he performs on himself the queer right of hari-kari.

"Chips," said the skipper, addressing the carpenter, "before you cut that shark up, just pull that rule out of your pocket and measure him.

He seems quite a big fellow."

And a big fellow he proved to be, measuring 30 feet 8-1/2 inches long.

The Captain said he was the largest one he had ever seen, but the chief mate declared he had once captured one that measured 38 feet, and he had sailed with a skipper who had hauled one in-board that was fully 40 feet in length. As a matter of fact, specimens of pelagic sharks are displayed in museums that exceed 40 feet, but they are very rare. In Florida varieties of fossil sharks have been dug up whose length "over all" averages more than 50 feet, but these are now happily extinct.

Seafaring men are not as a rule a bloodthirsty race, but they look upon sharks as their natural enemies, and against them they wage relentless warfare; and whenever one is hooked they rejoice with an exuberant pleasure, and will sacrifice their watch below in order to see him cut and carved. There is also much curiosity with regard to the contents of his interior. I once had for a s.h.i.+pmate a man who swore hard and fast that he once found in a shark a s.h.i.+p's chronometer that was still ticking. He was quite a truthful man too, but somehow I never believed that yarn. Of course a shark is one of the most ravenous and rapacious of fishes, and queer articles have undoubtedly been discovered in their stomachs.

Inside the one just caught there were two of the Captain's ducks, and not a morsel of anything else, which probably accounted for the greed with which he swallowed the four-pound chunk of briny pork. It is a tradition among sailors that sharks will not bite at a piece of beef, and I never heard of one being hooked with any bovine bait. In this the shark shows excellent taste and judgment, for the "salt junk" served out to seafarers is by no means a succulent or dainty dish. As a matter of fact, I have known a sailor to whittle out of it a fair model of the hull of a s.h.i.+p, and to dry it in the sun for two or three weeks, when it would come out for all the world as hard as a block of mahogany, which it resembled--and this too after the beef had been boiled for hours in the cook's coppers!

The Captain ordered the cook to cut off the fins and prepare them for his own particular use after the Chinese fas.h.i.+on, the almond-eyed Celestials esteeming them as an especial dainty. Then he carved two long cutlets from the back, which he also ordered to be cooked for his supper. The rest of the huge carca.s.s he surrendered to the crew. The boatswain cut out the heart of the shark, which was still palpitating, and placed it in a tin dish. He told me it would continue to beat till sundown, when it would suddenly become motionless. I did not believe him, and told him so, but he prophesied truly. I watched that throbbing heart pretty closely for several hours. It beat firmly and regularly until the upper rim of the sun disappeared beneath the western horizon.

Then it made a sudden stop, and became limp and pulseless. This may seem a yarn fit only to tell to the marines, but it is gospel truth on the word of a sailor. I have told the story to scientific men, but they have pooh-poohed at it, and declared it to have been impossible. But then it was not to be supposed that they would know anything about sharks, having got all their knowledge from musty books instead of from the sea itself. Old sailors who have crossed the line will, however, corroborate me as to this phenomenon.

The carpenter claimed the backbone, which he fas.h.i.+oned into a quite handsome walking-stick by impaling the finest sections of the spine on a slender bar of steel. And I may as well tell you that the "shark walking-canes" so frequently offered in South Street by impostors disguised as hardy mariners are as a rule made of sections of ox tails, prepared in a very cunning manner, and well calculated to deceive the inexperienced.

The Captain gave me the jaws, which were immense. I boiled them all night in a big kettle until all the flesh fell off them and they shone like ivory. I preserved them for many years as a souvenir of my first deep-sea voyage and of the first shark I had seen hooked.

The tail was nailed in triumph to the end of the flying jib-boom, replacing one of much smaller dimensions that had long braved both wind and weather. Sailors think that a shark's tail at the extreme end of a s.h.i.+p's "nose-pole" is the harbinger of good luck. While these things were being done the rest of the shark's carca.s.s was thrown overboard for his mates to gorge upon. The only people aboard the _Rajah_ that ate shark for supper that night were the Captain and the spinner of this yarn. The skipper feasted on the fins, followed by a big dish of cutlets. Of the last named delicacy I partook very sparingly, I warrant you, being actuated less by appet.i.te than by curiosity. Not being an accomplished ichthyophagist like my Captain, I am forced to confess that I found his flesh to be not only flavorless but coa.r.s.e.

[Ill.u.s.tration: INTERSCHOLASTIC SPORT]

It is an excellent thing for young men to be eager and enthusiastic in their pursuit of sport, but they should never allow their eagerness and enthusiasm to get the better of them. In a hotly contested game it is sometimes impossible for spectators to retain that composure which lends dignity to the Supreme Court, but, on the other hand, we should never allow our partisans.h.i.+p to carry us beyond the bounds of good behavior. I don't want to preach a sermon here on the etiquette of sport, because I am fully aware that my readers know just as much about the subject as I do; I merely want to urge them now to act on the grand stand, or along the ropes, or in the field itself just as in calmer moments they know they ought to act, and feel confident that they will.